Generation Kill - Evan Wright [55]
Fick radios the battalion requesting permission to send the vans south down the highway. Permission is granted, but it’s a futile exercise. The Marine convoy these vans are attempting to drive through stretches for twenty or more kilometers. Since all the units are on different comms, it’s impossible to pass word to them to allow these vans through. In the best-case scenario, the vans will be repeatedly stopped and won’t reach a hospital for a day or two. In the worst case, they will be shot up by nervous Marines.
“It sucks,” Fick says as we watch the vans creep off south through the Marine convoy. “This is what happens in war. For all we know, those wounded were the same guys shooting at us all day. They can’t use the hospital up the road, because Iraqis were using it to fire on Marines.”
But Fick has other concerns. In a couple of hours his men will roll through the city. Marines have dubbed the route through Nasiriyah “sniper alley,” though within a few weeks the same nickname will apply to any street in an Iraqi town.
Colbert briefs his team inside the Humvee. “The last friendly units that went through there were taking RPGs from the rooftops,” he says. “I want the Mark-19 ranged high. Trombley, anything that moves on the left that looks like a weapon, shoot it.”
“Gee, I hope I get to run over somebody at least,” Person says, growing petulant. As the driver, he doesn’t have easy access to his weapon. This fact bugs him. “I’m one of the best marksmen here. I can shoot people, too.”
Colbert tells him to shut up. “Look,” he tells his team. “There’s nothing to worry about. Everyone just do your job. We’re going to have a lot of ass rolling in front of us.”
“Ass” in the Marine Corps refers to heavily armed units, such as tanks. The Marines have been told that some armored elements of RCT-1 will move through the city ahead of them.
Espera, who drives behind Colbert with his team in a Humvee with no roof or doors on it, is worried. “I can understand a mission to assault a city, but to run a gauntlet through it?” he says, leaning into Colbert’s window. “I hope these generals know what they’re doing.”
AT MIDNIGHT, Espera and I share a last cigarette. Marines, unable to sleep, stand around by their Humvees wrapped in ponchos to ward off the bitter cold, some of them jumping in place to warm up. Espera and I climb under a Humvee to conceal the light of the cigarette and lie on our backs, passing it back and forth.
Espera reenlisted in the Marines on his way back from Afghanistan. While there, he and his squad of Marines spent forty-five days living in a three-meter-deep hole somewhere in the desert. The only action they saw occurred on the night their perimeter was overrun by camels. Espera and his men opened up on them with machine guns. “After three weeks out there, no sleep, living in those holes, I was fucking hallucinating,” he explains. “We thought those camels were fucking Hajjis coming over the wire. When we lit those motherfuckers up, it was fucking raining camel meat. It was a mess, dog. Motherfuckers even did a story on it in the L.A. Times.”
Now Espera admits he sometimes regrets reenlisting. “To come to this motherfucker?” He adds, “I’ve been so up and down today. I guess this is how a woman feels.”
Though Espera takes pride in being a “violent warrior,” the philosophical implications weigh on him. “I asked a priest if it’s okay to kill people in war,” he tells me. “He said it’s okay as long as you don’t enjoy it. Before we crossed into Iraq, I fucking hated Arabs. I don’t know why. I never saw too many in Afghanistan. But as soon as we got here, it’s just gone. I just feel sorry for them. I miss my little girl. Dog, I don’t want to kill nobody’s children.”
NO ONE’S SLEEPING in Colbert’s Humvee, either. When I get back in, Trombley once again talks about his hopes of having a son with his new young bride when he returns home.
“Never have kids, Corporal,” Colbert lectures. “One kid will cost you three hundred thousand dollars. You should